The Turing Foundation strives to offer children and young people in developing countries the kind of education that can help them structurally, encourage their independence and autonomy, and make them better able to contribute to their communities.

The Turing Foundation regards education as a means to offer people new opportunities in their lives in a constructive, structural and respectful way. Moreover, education benefits not only the individual, but also his environment and society as a whole. It can be seen as a sustainable method of poverty reduction.

Application procedures for education

Applications for financial support of education projects can be submitted by email or normal post.
Please make sure you include a fully completed project summary.

We only support projects that match our objectives and meet our conditions. There is no point in submitting an application that does not conform to our policies and criteria.

We will confirm to have received your information and will contact you for more details if we find your project matches our grant making policies. Information sent to us will not be returned. We thank you in advance for your understanding.

Policy focus:

We aim to increase access to high-quality education in selected developing countries. We focus on:

the projects are carried and/or executed by a local organisation with a strong leadership and a track record of similar projects;

the project fits the local needs and possibilities, the request is based on a local initiative, and the target group itself states the exact need;

the executive organisation and the target group each contribute to the project (by bearing part of the expenses or labour, for example);

the projects do not aim at specific, limited target groups such as orphans, street children, AIDS orphans et cetera.

The following exceptions apply:

Individuals: we only accept donation requests from organisations, institutions and groups;

Special needs education: we only support projects that aim at general education;

Educational projects for children under the age of 6;

Projects focused on university level education.

Preferences:

We give preference to educational projects that focus on:

schools that have a solid management;

quality improvement of the school management;

teacher training;

girls, because of their disadvantaged situation in education in many countries;

education that teaches about sustainability in one’s immediate environment;

contributing to the realisation of independent middle classes;

preventing brain drain, since we consider education to be a contribution to the community as a whole.

We prefer to fund projects that also receive financial support from other sources. Our “education” grants will therefore mostly consist of a partial funding.

Specific terms and conditions:

Building projects are only funded if a solid plan outlining the first six years of running costs is available, and a provision for the building’s maintenance is included.

Vocational training projects are only funded if these include short vocational training programmes, work placements and job mediation.

Projects aimed at the supply of books/other educational tools are only funded if they include teacher training in order to realise the effective use of these educational tools.

ICT is regarded as an educational tool. We do not fund the implementation of ICT at schools as a purpose in itself.

We will not usually fund local organisations directly, but rather through a Dutch partner organisation. Only in special circumstances when a local initiative has exceptional references from Turing Foundation partners will they be considered for direct funding.